In Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon Ramsay does make-overs on failing restaurants and turns them into respectable enterprises through a combination of cuisine guidance, managerial pruning, and loads of swearing when things fail to meet his standards.

It’s a fantastic show that gives grim insight to the scary state of affairs of the chosen spots, but it also goes beyond the schadenfreude and saves these places from going out of business.

What makes Ramsay’s approach to restaurant revamping so interesting, though, is how applicable it feels to software design. The characteristics of a failing eatery ring remarkably similar to those of a poorly-run software product:

Everything to no one
Almost all Ramsay’s cases feature an overstuffed menu derived from a misguided notion that more choice is always better and that making every dish under the sun will broaden the appeal of the restaurant. The first order for the cuisine is to trim the choices and go from thirty-some dishes to ten or twelve.

Compare this to a piece of software overflowing with features. None of them particularly tasty, none of them particularly well done, all of them burdening the user with a learning curve and all of them cluttering the interface to the point of mediocracy.

You don’t tickle patron’s taste buds by all the dishes you can make that they don’t eat and you don’t delight users by spreading yourself thin over all the features they won’t use.

Cook what you know
British chefs slicing Japanese Sushi or Indian chefs cooking traditional American cuisine are two examples that Ramsay cracked down on under the banner of Cook What You Know. If you don’t have a strong history of eating and living with certain ingredients and styles of cuisine, it’s much, much harder to reach the upper echelon’s of taste. And why bother? Pick your native ingredients, those in season, and make what you know and can personally appreciate.

The same is true for software. When you create products for yourself, you’ll have a much easier job and most likely be much better at it too. It’s hard to make good food if you don’t know what excellence should taste like and it’s equally hard to craft good software if you can’t appreciate what brilliance looks like.

Passion for your environment
Great chefs care about their tools and their environment. Poor chefs let their kitchens go and don’t cleanup the messes they create. In the world of food that’s not just sloppy, but dangerous as well. One of Ramsay’s common shocks come in the form of “I fucking ate this!!” when he looks at the ingredients and machinery that produced his welcoming meal.

Great programmers are like great chefs. They care about having a clean, productive environment. They surround themselves with beautiful code that they craft with tools that they enjoy. You can’t disregard your tools and think that you can still produce great work. It doesn’t work in cooking and it doesn’t work in programming.

That’s just a small taste of the similarities. Ramsay has plenty of additional lessons to teach software creators about vision, simplicity, and executing on the basics beautifully. I highly recommend setting your DVR to pick up the American version of Kitchen Nightmares on Fox every Wednesday from 8pm. The original British ones from BBC are great as well.

Luke Redpath

Completely agree. I’m a great admirer of Gordon Ramsey. Maybe his approach is a bit rough but if you look beyond the swearing and shouting he’s got some sound suggestions and ideas, and not only to software design like you’ve mentioned but to every and any type business out there.

I’ve been watching his Kitchen Nightmares for a few years now (I’m in the UK) and I really enjoy seeing those small businesses taken from a failing or going bankrupt situation and being turned around into a very successful business. The latest episode here in the UK took a business that was loosing £1500 a week to making £14000 a week! Amazing!

Keep it simple people!

Luke Redpath

on 01 Nov 07

Interesting article. It’s a good show and I find it interesting to compare the production style between Fox and the UK version (which was a Channel 4 production, not the BBC).

The overuse of loud, dramatic music, sweeping pans and cuts and the constant voiceovers reminding you of what happened only two minutes ago is ridiculously OTT with the whole thing bordering on some kind of of hillarious satire of the original show.

I agree, I’ve also noticed that the American version is either edited terribly (so I notice) or is really over-edited for dramatic effect. When you are a big fan of the original C4 version it is quite noticeable.

That is funny. Our teams uses the chef analogy when we create things for customers. If it is sloppy and tastes like shit nobody is going to want to eat it. I think that is true in cooking and in software development.

I am more of a TopChef fan as I like to see talent and creativity under pressure. You can really see how good people really are when they only have a few ingredients and very little time. Constraint proves how talented people really are.

And he does user testing. Ramsay heads out with one of the original menu’s dishes, and one of his suggested improvements and tries them out on real people. He also gathers input from the locals about what they think of the prices and why they’re not going there.

It’s certainly user centered design at work – work out what people want, and give it to them with skill, simplicity and high standards. Ramsay is also an impressive example of passion, talent, hard work and a good business brain all working together. Oh, and swearing a lot, too.

- I agree. His ‘trimming of the menu’ process is applicable to almost all areas of design. Knowing what to keep and what to toss is a very critical step.
- Swearing is good. We need more of it in a work environment. Especially for those of us that have to deal with computers and software all day. ;0)
- Much of America’s good TV is stolen from great British TV. I wish BBC would realize we don’t want BBC America here. We want BBC.

John A Davis

on 01 Nov 07

You burned the bloody risotto! You bloody fool!

Koz

on 01 Nov 07

And swearing. He can totally teach swearing.

andrew

on 01 Nov 07

I will add my recommendation to skip the FOX version of this show entirely and seek out the original.

I’d seen the previous UK shows about Gordon Ramsay (Ramsay’s Boiling Point?) that’s basically about his celebrity and ego, and found that to be pretty much a turn-off. Hell’s Kitchen? More FOX drivel. No thanks. Never seen a minute of it.

So I was surprised to get sucked into Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America. They hint at the genesis of the show during the episode involving the over-the-top French cuisine restaurant in Inverness, as Ramsay had attempted a similar feat in Glasgow and went down in flames. Taking that experience and turning it into a show was a brilliant idea. His idea? Who knows, but I like the brutally honest but constructive Ramsay much better.

To me, the most hilarious part of the show is his insistence on filming one of his “talk to the camera” moments with his shirt off while changing into his whites. He may be using his powers for good, but he’s still an unashamedly egotistical bastard!

nathan

on 01 Nov 07

@Luke In the states, the original show is on BBC America. So sue us.

Agree, the American version sucks.

Back to the original article, I would add that besides your excellent points, we should also learn that software (or web) developers need to sometimes be as brutally honest with ourselves when we produce crap – as if a grouchy Brit were beating us with a verbal wet noodle.

Deano

It was pretty funny seeing this, as a mate of mine used the same analogy in a slightly different, if not complimentary way!
http://imgiseverything.co.uk/2007/06/04/what-web-agencies-can-learn-from-gordon-ramsay/

He followed it up with Sarah Beeny (presenter of property TV shows in the UK) as another analogy for Web Developers: http://imgiseverything.co.uk/2007/06/11/what-web-professionals-can-learn-from-sarah-beeny/

Makes me wonder what other lessons we can learn from TV celebs ;)

Andy

on 02 Nov 07

Agreed, Ramsays approach to the kitchen can easily be applied to software/web development. I’ve had a few guys working under me who were (to coin GR) “f**king useless” and it’s only beneficial to do the job properly.

Also, as a slight twist, whilst the US version of Kitchen Nightmares is nowhere near as good as the UK, our ‘celebrity’ version of Hells Kitchen is terrible in comparison to US. How about tat!

The most interesting thing I’ve taken away from watching both UK and US versions of Kitchen Nightmares is that many times the chefs have just seemed to lose their passion and desire when it comes to their craft (making good food).

That loss of motivation is always a big reason why the restaurant is failing, and I’ve been very disturbed when I see a little of myself in those unmotivated chefs. Attitude adjustments are just as important as any physical or technical adjustments.

Luke Redpath

on 02 Nov 07

@Jack – whilst it wouldn’t surprise me if a good deal of the US version is set up, the UK version is definitely for real. One of the restaurants featured a couple of series back tried to sue him; they lost.

Tom G.

on 02 Nov 07

The title here is perfect. Ramsay does have some (IMHO obvious) ideas about excellence in service.

He however is a case study in how not to manage people.

The very best software is developed by small teams of superstars each doing what they do best. Highly intelligent and creative people generally shut down and leave when bullied. If you find a way to hold their feet to the fire, you’ll certainly not get their best possible effort.

Art S.

on 02 Nov 07

I agree with the article that there is much to learn from Ramsay, but one of the big things that I take from the show is to hold yourself and your work to the highest standards. If you produce something that is crap – throw it away and start it again; don’t just deliver it to the customer because they have been waiting.

As far as management style – I think a lot of his techniques are very much like the military: break them down then build them back up as a team. He goes in tears up everything and everyone to reestablish where the bar is going to be set, then he helps them acheive those standards. If you watch his swear count, I think that you will see it highly biased to the first half of the show.

Jai

on 02 Nov 07

Totally agree with your sentiments on Ramsay’s philosophies but as others have already mentioned, the American version is a poor version of the original UK show.

The UK show has a softer tone (with Ramsay himself doing the voiceovers) and focuses more on the details of both the business, and the menu of each failing restaurant. The fox version uses actors as stand-in customers to be “interviewed”, and it focuses more on Ramsay’s over-the-top temper tantrums, and people’s reaction to him.

Since you appreciate the concept of the show, and the little bit of Ramsay’s philosophies that come through, I would highly recommend setting your DVR to record the UK version which runs reruns of the first four seasons on BBC America.

DHH

on 02 Nov 07

I fully agree that the UK version has more detail. Features like coming back to the restaurant after a few months have been cut from the Fox version, which is a shame.

But I do like the Fox version for the fact that it’s American restaurants feeling Ramsay’s heat. They seem so much more likely to think this is going to be all fun and games. “Hihihi, Gordon is going to yell at me!”. Then when he actually does, they look like shellshocked sheep. Priceless.

Aj

on 02 Nov 07

Classic…the one thing you didn’t bring up is that the some of the chefs don’t actually taste the food they send out. I see that all the time with developers never actually using to tools or understanding their clients needs.

This comment has everything to do with Ramsay’s show and nothing to do with software.

Watch the British show, skip the American show.

On the British version, he gets the chefs and owners to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. “Here’s what you need to do. Now sink or swim. Bleepity bleep.”

On the US version, he comes in, yells a lot, and then gives them a new kitchen or remodels their entire restaurant. Bogus.

In one episode (and each episode is supposed to comprise 5 days), they remodeled the entire restaurant (overnight), removed the big ugly sign with a crane, and had a parade in honor of re-starting the restaurant.

Now, tell me, how do you show up in NYC, declare a sign ugly, and get a permit to have a huge crane come in, block traffic for hours, and take down the sign? Also, how quickly do you get an additional permit to have a small parade in the city?

I’m sure there’s a software metaphor in there somewhere, but I don’t see it right now.

Jonathan

on 05 Nov 07

I am amazed! Here we have Americans talking about a British TV show and NOT ONE PERSON has pulled out the usual “I think swearing is a terrible thing and spurn anyone who uses unclean language out of hand.”

Incredible, I say again! A first for any discussion involving Americans, I’ll be bound.

This discussion is closed.

About David

Creator of Ruby on Rails, partner at 37signals, best-selling author, public speaker, race-car driver, hobbyist photographer, and family man.